The prevalence of obesity has been increasing alarmingly throughout the world and causes a multitude of comorbid conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The importance of genetic factors in determining susceptibility to obesity, in concert with environmental effects, has been well established. It is believed that many susceptibility genes may predispose to the common form of obesity, whereas the contribution of each gene is likely to be moderate. However, only a limited number of candidate genes for obesity were identified so far. Along with a multidisciplinary group of colleagues from Harvard University, Dr. Zhang is implementing a study to identify genetic factors of obesity and verify initial positive findings from GWAS of genetic variants that may determine abdominal adiposity in independent populations and to further examine the effect of gene-environment interactions. In the past year, several significant genetic factors were identified.